Economists Don't Say That Automation Will Drive Unemployment Higher

Erik Loomis had an NYT column arguing for a government jobs guarantee by telling readers:

"Employment numbers may look solid now, but economists, physicists and industrial engineers all say that automation will, in the not-so-distant future, drive higher unemployment."

This is not true. Productivity growth (a.k.a. "automation") has been very weak for the last decade, averaging just over 1.0 percent annually. Most projections assume that productivity growth will remain slow, implying a relat...